Against the forecasts of almost all the demoscopic houses and the bulk of the analysts, the general elections of the past 23 July will not result in a change in the Government of Spain. Everything points to the re-issue of the parliamentary coalition that has supported the Socialist Cabinet with its far-left partners, this time, articulated around Sumar. The Popular Party has no choice and does not seem to be able to gain power. The analysis of the causes of this unforeseen scenario has been very abundant and perhaps it is unnecessary, for reiteration, to go into it here. That is why it is more relevant to consider what the future can offer.
To begin with, the left and its allies have a much more fragile position than in the last legislature. On the one hand, the popular opposition has a majority in the Senate, which can significantly hinder the legislative work of the Central Government; on the other hand, its supporters present antinomies that are difficult to manage between parties that are rivals in their autonomous communities and, in addition, have very different ideologies, if not incompatible, for example in the approach to economic policy.
This will generate problems both to intensify the statist agenda deployed by the left in the previous five-year period and to address the demands arising from the entry into force next year of the European fiscal rules.
However, we must say that the Central Government will be in iron poor health, because when elected it could only be overthrown by a motion of constructive censure, which would force any of its potentially disgruntled allies to vote with Vox, necessary to set up any alternative formula from the right in Congress. This makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to get the support of the Basque nationalists, who are facing decisive and very complicated regional elections next May. This makes them, at least for the time being, hostages of the social-communist left; this situation is similar to that which the PNB found itself in the final phase of the Second Republic.
The PP faces a complicated situation in the short term. The Spanish centre-right has only obtained power when it has grouped itself around a single party and obtained an absolute majority or has been able to combine with the Basque-Catalan nationalist centre-right. Either of these two options is unviable as long as there is a formation to the right with the number of votes and seats of Vox. In part, this was due to the design of a campaign and a message that was too decaffeinated and with few ideas so as not to put at risk what was considered the broad victory prophesied by its demographic guru.
The continuity of Pedro Sánchez is not good news for Spain, because a socio-economic model incompatible with a modern and efficient State is being built. There is no hope, but on the contrary, to strengthen the already very weakened institutions of liberal democracy or the creation of an economy with macro stability, innovative and competitive, which allows for sustained growth and a rise in the level of citizens.
In the last five years there has been a deepening of the redistribution of power between society and the State that has been experienced since 2004. There has been an increase in state power in all fields, which has increasingly reduced the sphere of autonomy and, therefore, of freedom for individuals, whose dependence on the public sector is ever greater. The Spanish left, as Madison wrote in 1794, has used "the old trick of turning every contingency into a resource to accumulate strength in the government”. Spain has entered a path of Argentinianization of the system and this is not good at all.
In the immediate horizon, this trajectory can only be altered and only in the field of the economy, not in the ideological agenda, if the entry into force of the fiscal rules in the euro zone force the Spanish Government to rectify the orientation of its policy.
There is no room to cut the deficit-debt binomial with new tax increases, unless it ends up proletarianizing the Spanish middle class, and tackling a cut in public spending is a politically impossible task for a central government with the alliances that are emerging to invest it. And, in the midst of all this, this government will have to give in to the growing demands that its allies will make...
